Foot-Tracking Cookies That Collect Data

A London-based team of data scientists at Hoxton Analytics have developed a technology that categorizes and serves ads to people in stores based on the shoes they wear. The technology relies on machine learning to identify a customer’s gender with up to 80% accuracy, according to the company. The product sits in a small unit that houses a camera and a processor. It’s typically installed low in a doorway or corridor to gather images of people’s footwear as they walk past. From these images and multiple layers of machine learning and artificial intelligence it can predict gender and age. Hoxton Analytics’ scientists believe by analyzing the style and size of people’s footwear as they walk past the sensors, the system can make real-time judgments on demographic and footfall. The shoes…